1XV (M)
Matches
Sat 01 Sep 2018  ·  Yorkshire Division Two
Wetherby RUFC
1XV (M)
25
22
Yarnbury
Wetherby start with win at home to Yarnbury

Wetherby start with win at home to Yarnbury

Stephen Hoather3 Sep 2018 - 16:48
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“Cut me in half and I’ll bleed tan and teeth whitener” - Jack Kaye, 100% natural beauty

After a long and varied summer away from rugby, Wetherby went into their first league game of the season against Yarnbury having not played a single game of fifteens together since the end of last season. Five of last year’s colts made the Wetherby squad as they hosted super-sized Yarnbury side at a sun-kissed Grange Park.

Wetherby kicked off and started brightly, shutting down the hard carrying Yarnbury forwards through some stoic defence from the returning Jim Greenwood. Looking just like he’d never left, Jim was red-skinned, white haired and calf muscles like a rhinos torsoe. Good to have him back.

With the Wetherby forwards defending well, Yarnbury were forced to kick, but a poor exit strategy gave Yarnbury a line-out on the Wetherby 22. The Yarnbury backs managed to commit the inexperienced centre partnership of Jonathan Fox and AJ Hills and found space around the outside for a good finish in the corner. 0-7.

Wetherby hit back straight from the restart thanks in part to James Gibson. His appetite for spoiling opposition ball is surpassed only by his appetite for moaning. The scrum he earned gave the leaner looking Wetherby pack their first real test. With quick ball it was all down to ‘la serpiente’ Fran Ortelli from the back of the scrum. The charismatic number eight burst through the line and brushed off defenders as he scored a superb solo try. 7-7.

With some new faces and combinations in the Wetherby team, the half-breaks weren’t quite being converted into points. Yarnbury again used a long kicking strategy to peg the home team back, and another poor exit put Wetherby on the back foot. In almost a carbon copy of the first try, Yarnbury flat footed the Wetherby defence and broke through to score their second. 7-12.

The frustration was clearly beginning to show from Wetherby as they coughed up possession time and time again. James Gibson and Danny Warden did well at line-out time and Adam Shaw was proving rock solid at tight-head prop. Yarnbury worked well with the ball however and a break through the midfield left the Yarnbury winger one on one with Myles Oates. Unfortunately Myles Oates assumed the position of a fielder from the tabletop cricket game and let Yarnbury’s winger run in unopposed for a well taken hat-trick. 7-17.

Wetherby looked dumbstruck to be hit by similar tries three times in the match, but came back fighting before half-time. Some strong carrying by George Gilbert in the back-row, Jonathan Fox in the centres and Matt Mulchinock on the wing put pressure on Yarnbury pack and forced penalties. A five-metre line-out was pulled to ground close to the Yarnbury line and after a couple of tight phases, Myles Oates made up for his earlier error by crashing over under the posts to close the gap. 14-17.

Andy Gair’s red and white army now had the wind in their sails and with front foot ball from the forwards, impressive debutant Will Atherton was able to orchestrate from scrum-half. A loveable scamp and a sure-fire fan favourite, DJ Aff~e fired his passes to Harry Kaye with venom and accuracy. Poor Harry must have spent all day looking past the ball into the memory of the man he used to be, and not the one he’s become. Fortunately a glimpse of the old Harry Kaye was enough to generate a penalty, which was duly converted by Danny Warden on the stroke of half-time.

Half-time: Wetherby 17-17 Yarnbury

With the game all square and Wetherby on the front foot, they re-shuffled their backline by throwing Archie Youlden into the fray. Despite shuffling around like someone’s tied a piece of string around knees, his deceptive skill set allows him to play fluidly across the back-line. The added dimension to the backs saw a nice move off the back of a Wetherby scrum as Myles Oates ran free and showed glimpses of the old pace that evaded him for much of last year to score from 60 yards and give the Wetherby faithful a deserved lead. 22-17.

On a hot afternoon Yarnbury pressed home with their plan A, battering into wall after wall of Red and White Defence. The introduction of beefcakes Sam Mayhew and Matt Bartle wasn’t just to please the eyes of the spectators, they increased physicality with their ruthless tackling. Yarnbury came close down both flanks but the resilience of Chris Atkinson and Matt Mulchinock on the wings kept them at bay.

The travelling side were relentless in attack and had another good opportunity to score stopped by cover defence from AJ Hills. This mean feat of defending is made even more impressive by AJs claim to have been suffering from “festival blues” this week, despite having only spent the Sunday afternoon at Leeds fest. What it boils down to is that AJ was slightly hungover after spending the afternoon drinking in a field five miles away from his house, and being back in bed by half past one.

The resulting five metre scrum was blown out of the park by the Wetherby pack, helped largely to Big Hero 6 Bradley Mason. The only difference is big hero 6 didn’t get asked to stop his pursuit of a teaching career for shouting at the children who couldn’t keep their crayon drawings within the lines.

As the game entered into its final ten minutes, it looked to be petering out as neither team created anything and the ball. Yarnbury finally created a gap outside and with a 3-on-1 down his wing Matt Mulchinock was yellow carded for a ball and all tackle that would surely have resulted in a try had he not made it.

Yarnbury put one last gust of wind in their sails and once more found the Wetherby defence sub-par from the line-out as they stretched the defence to the left wing before slicing through the defence as they came back right. Surely they couldn’t beat us in the last minute of the game again. An easy conversion was missed and the game was all square. 22-22.

With Wetherby needing energy from somewhere, they made a change in the front row that simply wouldn’t have happened last year. The injection of Adam Shaw for an out of sorts Steve Hoather looked like a mistake after the restarted kick-off resulted in a scrum, but Shaw showed his mettle as the front row folded over their opposition to win a penalty to win the game. Up stepped Archie Youlden, and with great big kahunas of steel he converted the penalty and won Wetherby the game.

Full-time: Wetherby 25-22 Yarnbury

MoM: Fran Ortelli - may be la serpiente on a rugby pitch, but soon becomes el ratón when his girlfriend is around.

DoD: Jonny Day - Spent all summer playing happy families and ignoring his mates. Not that his mates are bitter or anything.

Match details

Match date

Sat 01 Sep 2018

Kickoff

TBC

Competition

Yorkshire Division Two
Team overview
Further reading